Photos from ‘Side Effects’ Paris premiere that took place at the UGC Cine Cite des Halles on March 7th have now been added to our gallery. Check them out!
As 2012 came to a close, Jude Law celebrated his 40th birthday. Whereas a few years ago we might have known everything about it – where and how it was marked, who was there, eating what food – it now passed quietly, and without public comment. For 11 months earlier, Law had accepted £130,000 from the publisher of the recently defunct News of the World in compensation for years of intrusion by the newspaper into his private life.
‘It was a beautiful, happy day,’ Law admits, with a broad smile. ‘A big lunch surrounded by all the people I love most in the world – my children, my parents, my sister, my nieces and nephews, my godparents. Dad made the loveliest speech… I felt very happy. Very at peace.’
Law has lived a lot in his relatively short life. Aged 17 he dropped out of school to start acting professionally in the Granada sitcom Families. At 22 he won the Ian Charleson Outstanding Newcomer Award for his performance in Jean Cocteau’s Les Parents Terribles at the National Theatre.
One year later, he had his first child, Rafferty, with Sadie Frost, whom he married the following year. In 1999, aged 24, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley. By the time he was 30, Law had three children and 17 films to his name and was widely considered to be one of the most bankable film stars in the world.
This success did not come without a price, and Law’s halo seemed to slip with every news story about his private life. After divorcing Frost in 2003, he embarked on a scandal-filled on-off-on-off engagement to Sienna Miller (they finally split up in 2011) and became a father for the fourth time in 2009 when a daughter, Sophia, was born as a result of a short-lived relationship with the American model Samantha Burke.
Unfortunately for Law, this has often meant that the public has overlooked his professional achievements during the past decade – 23 further films, not to mention a critically acclaimed return to the stage (for which he was nominated for two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award). He has also used his public profile to positive effect with his charitable work. According to Jeremy Gilley, the founder of the peace movement Peace One Day, it was absolutely thanks to Law’s presence on two trips to Afghanistan with him in 2007 and 2008 that Unicef and the World Health Organisation were able to vaccinate millions of children against polio on the days of agreed ceasefire that resulted.
‘I’m 40! I’m an adult!” shouts Jude Law. “Aren’t I?” We hold these truths to be self-evident, I reply, as the actor, laughing, stares across the table with those adorable baby blues and more hair than’s fair. “But,” he says more quietly, “part of me thinks I can’t play a doctor. Who would come to me?”
You’ve got to be kidding. Who wouldn’t come to Dr Jude? In Steven Soderbergh’s film Side Effects, Law plays an Englishman in New York, a slimy limey of a pill-dispensing psychiatrist who becomes entangled in murder, drug switcheroos, a risible lesbian insider trading scam and lots more vaguely voguish, putatively Hitchkockian hokum before the credits. Astute critics have compared this performance with the one Law gave in the 2004 film I Heart Huckabees, where he played a shallow business exec in psychic meltdown. “The de-smugging of Jude Law is yet again a dramatic motor to swear by,” wrote the Daily Telegraph. Quite so: seeing Dr Jude losing his Brit cool when wrong-footed by faux-innocent Rooney Mara or handbagged by crackers shrink Catherine Zeta-Jones is worth the price of admission alone.
We’re sitting in a conference room at the Guardian in London’s Kings Cross. For an hour his PR chaperones have left him alone with the clown who once inadvertently cycled into the canal we can see from the window. If Law sacks his minders later, that would be understandable.
Between us is a pill bottle whose label says it contains 20mg capsules of a new antidepressant called Ablixa. Perhaps if the media inquisition gets too much, you could neck some, even if the directions explicitly state “Take ONE daily” and warn that side-effects include sleepwalking and insomnia. “But they look like Smarties!” says Law. That’s because they are Smarties. The PR people for Side Effects, which deals with the perils of prescription drugs, handed out the bottles at the press screening the night before. Nice gag. One could barely concentrate on the final credits for the rattling of antidepressants as the hacks scrambled out of the cinema.
Jude appeared on The Graham Norton Show to promote ‘Side Effects’, and here is a clip from the show where Graham chats with Jude about being voted the sexiest man alive. To watch the whole episode, click here.
Jude answered questions from the media on his latest film, ‘Side Effects’ at the Apple Store Regent Street on February 27th in London, England. Photos from the event can be seen in our gallery.
‘Side Effects’ star Jude Law chats with SheKnows about his role as an ambitious psychiatrist and what he’s doing personally to better himself.
Jude’s character in Side Effects believes that prescription pills are the answer to whatever ails you.
“I was intrigued by his absolute devotion and belief in medicine,” Jude told SheKnows at the press day for the movie in Los Angeles. “He’s someone who has worked very hard to get where he is, and to get as successful and effective as he is. It’s almost like a religion to him. He has a great faith in medicine being the answer. People that have that kind of faith are incredibly inspiring.”
In his own life though, Jude is turning to more holistic methods to improve his mood. The actor, who just turned 40 in December, told us he’s trying to expand his hobbies right now.
“An age with a zero on the end of it is always a good time to stop and address what you want to happen and what you want to do with yourself,” Jude told SheKnows. “I have certain ambitions — most of them have to do with making myself a wholer, happier person. Yoga is involved and evolving my hobbies a little bit more, doing stuff for myself.”
Eating right is clearly important to Jude, too, as he ordered a tuna Niçoise salad before the interview. And when SheKnows suggested he throw in the butternut squash soup, he was all over it as well!
Jude Law and Rooney Mara talk about working with Steven Soderbergh on his last film, “Side Effects.”
Jude Law was born December 29, 1972 in Lewisham, South London, England as second child to teachers Maggie and Peter Law. He grew up in Blackheath, a village in the Borough of Lewisham and he was educated at John Ball Primary School in Blackheath and Kidbrooke School in Kidbrooke, before attending the Alleyn's School in Dulwich.
